Where Home Is Found
by edelweiss123
Summary: Finding life in Konoha to be unbearable, 6yr-old Naruto escapes, searching for a place to call 'home'. Through a long, difficult search, he learns that it's not so much the place, but the people that count. NarutoGaaraFemHaku. Pairings undecided, no yaoi.
1. A different turn

Once upon a time, a small blonde child, just 6 years old, was walking down the streets of Konoha. Despite his apparently aimless gait, he did have a destination in mind, and plans for when he got there.

He wanted to die.

And, from what he could tell, everyone else wanted him dead, too.

(This was not exactly true. Though over half of the population would in fact celebrate were he to perish, most of the rest simply did not care. There were even a few--4--that wanted him to live, but one was too busy to provide anything more than moral support from a distance, one was too consumed by his past to focus on what he had left of it, one was no more than a casual acquaintance at best, and the other, despite having a legal obligation to him, was out in the world keeping him safe in a way that meant he would not have to come face to face with the only reminder of his greatest failure.)

But when the eyes of everyone he saw were either filled with with barely restrained--or even unrestrained--hatred, or simple cold indifference--(and sometimes that hurt even more than the hatred)--it became impossible for him to remember the group of few that sort of cared for him--(not to mention he was completely unaware of two of them.)

As he walked, he came to a point on the road where he could turn either left, or right. In another reality, he decided to go right, which was the longer way to get to his destination--(because even though he wanted to die, he wanted to live just a little bit longer)--and he would walk past a boy with ebony black hair and sad eyes, and the boy wouldn't hate him--would even acknowledge him, somewhat--and he would feel hope that maybe, just maybe, it would be worth it to live a little longer. In that reality, he turned back around and headed toward the playground, where he was still--mostly--ignored, but still hopeful that it wouldn't always be that way.

This was not that reality.

Wanting to get it over with as soon as possible, he turned left.

~o0o~

From his spot atop the Hokage monument, dangerously close to the prepice of the Yondaime's head, he could see the village in its' entirety.

It was beautiful.

And he hated it with every fiber of his soul.

Creeping closer to the edge of the stone, maneuvering around great thick spikes of sculpted hair, he peered down at the rocky ground hundreds of feet below.

Shivering, with a horrible knot tying itself into his stomach, he scooted away. Then he started to cry.

Surely, he was the lowest of the low: he didn't want to live anymore, but he couldn't bring himself to end it either. Maybe it really didn't matter either way, since he was so worthless.

For a long time, he just sat there, knees hugged against his chest--(he was the only one who had ever hugged him)--tears sluggishly streaming down his cheeks, eyes staring out unseeingly into the distance.

At some point, a bird cried from somewhere above him and he jumped a little--it was near.

He watched it with disinterest as it flew over his head, then in front of him, then over the village, then--and by this point it was just a speck on the horizon, but he had always had very good vision--it flew over the village walls, out above the forest, and on and on and on, towards lands unknown...

He wondered how it felt to be so free.

With a jolt, he realized he could very easily find out for himself.

His previous plans forgotten, he rushed back up the trail that led down to the village eagerly, running full tilt towards the nearest village gate.

~o0o~

He didn't have much of a plan as he honed in on the gate, only knew that inside the village was misery and outside was freedom from it.

At any rate, whatever plans he may have made were shattered before they even got a chance to form.

"Halt," one of the men in vests called out to him and he skidded to a stop, glancing warily towards the pair.

"State your name and purpose," the other one said as he half-stood up, towering over the short blonde. (He knew good and well just who this..._child_ was, but still had certain formalities to run through.)

"Uzumaki Naruto... and um, I was just gonna go outside," he said nervously, pointing in the general direction of the world outside the village walls. Apparently, his gesture was ignored and the angry man continued.

"We _are_ outside, brat. Now, tell us what you're really up to or you'll regret it." There was that look again--the one that made him want to sink into the earth and disappear.

"H-honest! I just want to go outside the village for a little while." The standing man's eyes widened, then he smirked--though it was not a happy-looking expression, by any means--and looked like he was about to wave him through when the other man punched him in the arm and glared at him. The standing man scowled and sat down, while the other one spoke up.

"I'm sorry, Uzumaki-san. You are not allowed to leave the village." Naruto felt that sick, twisty knot come back in his stomach.

"W-what?! Why? I won't do anything bad, I promise! I'll come right back!" he pleaded

"No, I am sorry," he did not look sorry, "you cannot leave. It is against the rules." His cheeks felt wet again and he realized he was crying.

"Please, just for a little while? I really want to go-"

"No. Now please go back into the village." It was cold, final, and caused something--and it was not the first, nor would it be the last of the many in his lifetime--to snap inside of him.

"NO!" He cried--screamed--and bolted toward the village gates. It was wide open, he could see the trees, see freedom-

He hadn't even been running for a full three seconds when the ANBU were upon him.

~o0o~

Kicking, screaming, biting, punching, he tried every violent way he could think of to break free from the ANBU's grasp as they dragged him to the Hokage's tower in the center--farther and farther away from his freedom--of the village, returning the thrashing boy's efforts with equal roughness to keep him detained.

Once inside, they barged into the Sandaime's office without preamble, held the boy up for a startled Sarutobi to see, addressed him curtly,

"Hokage-sama," and then proceeded to summarize Naruto's attempt of fleeing the village. They left the boy in an unceremonious sniveling heap on the floor and departed seconds later. The heavy doors to his office shut with an ominous finality.

Standing up and peering over the edge of his desk, Sarutobi observed with a deep pang of pity as Naruto curled into himself and wept onto his carpet.

"Naruto..." he started, but a small, frail, squeaky voice interrupted him.

"Why...? Why, Jiji? Why does everyone...?" He inhaled sharply as a sob constricted his throat for a moment, then continued.

"Why does everyone hate me?" Sarutobi tensed and prepared to make up an excuse for his villagers actions, even as a deep burning anger coursed through him at having to do so at all. But the boy preempted his response with another, heart-wrenching, sob.

"Why can't I leave? I just wanted to go outside for a little while... why...?" Hiruzen sighed as he felt every single one of his years settle into his bones.

"Naruto... you can't go outside the village. It's not safe. You're only six years old, and..." he continued on, but Naruto was not listening. Something was eating away at the back of his mind and it threatened to break him, again. But he could not hold his thoughts back for long and the logic of the situation as he saw it unfolded before him.

The Old Man was the Hokage, so he made the rules, right?

_"I am sorry, you cannot leave. It is against the rules." _The man at the gate had said that.

The Old Man made that rule, then. He--the one person who was kind to him--was denying him what he wanted most. _He_ was the one keeping him trapped here, in this hell.

How could he care for him if he made the rules that made him so miserable? He didn't care if it wasn't safe! He'd rather be dead than here, anyway! Couldn't he see? Didn't he know? If he was the Hokage, why could he make rules that only made him miserable but not make a rule that made people treat him better? Unless...

Unless the Hokage really did hate him, but was only pretending to be nice.

It wouldn't be the first time... someone would pretend to be nice to him, but then when he did something, even just a little bit wrong...

He shuddered as the phantom pains raced across his skin.

And then he clenched his fists and tried not to cry harder as an even worse pain coursed through his body.

Old Man Hokage, the one person he knew for sure cared for him... did not.

For the second time that day, something inside Naruto--and this time he could tell what it was: it was his faith and trust--crumbled and broke.

"...and sometimes enemy ninja get close enough to the village to-" The Old Man was still making excuses. He didn't want to be in the same room as him anymore.

"Okay," Naruto interrupted quietly.

Sarutobi was startled at Naruto's calm acceptance--he had anticipated having to lecture the boy for hours about safety, and having him yell back at him, and only getting him to promise to stay in the village after promising to treat him to some ramen, but this...

"I'll stay, Hokage-sama." His voice was dead, flat. And then he turned and left.

Sarutobi was shocked into silence at the boy's complete 180 in attitude, and felt a belated shiver at the look he had seen in his cold blue eyes--a look that should never exist on anyone other than a war veteran--and couldn't help but feel that somehow, someday, he was going to regret this.

"Minato..." he murmured to the photo on the wall behind him.

"What have I done?"

~o0o~

As it turned out, 'someday' ended up being just two weeks later.

In another reality, Naruto would develop his latent creativity and organizational planning skills with elaborate pranks.

Today, he was using it to escape.

He had spent the last two weeks observing--observing the different gate guards, the ones who checked people thoroughly and those who did not, what kinds of people were allowed easy entrance and exit to the village and those who were examined more closely--and came up with a plan. A simple, but effective, plan.

He had noticed that the guards that ran the six to noon shift were much lazier and more inattentive then the others, so he decided to leave as early in the morning as possible, when they were the sleepiest. He also saw that merchants were given the most leniency at the gate check, compared to other civilians and especially to shinobi. Most of the merchants seemed to arrive on Wednesday, and leave on Friday--probably because market day was on Thursday, not that he had ever attended one.

So with these three things in mind, Naruto got up at the crack of dawn and packed everything he thought he'd need that he owned into a plain white sack and tied it off with a long piece of rope. It was a small sack.

As he turned to go, he glanced back at his tiny, cramped apartment. He hadn't spent much time here--in fact he had only moved in two months ago--but even in that short time, he had thought of it as a haven, where at least no one would bother him. Even if he was alone.

He closed the door behind him. He was never coming back.

There wasn't much foot traffic this early in the morning, for which he was grateful. Fewer witnesses.

He crept up to the corner of the large horse stable that faced the main road into (and out of) the village, and waited. The smell of manure was unpleasant, and probably skewed his perception, but after an eternity of waiting, he finally spotted a likely target.

Waddling along from the direction of the marketplace was a rather fat man, pulling a covered wooden cart. It had two wheels, similar to a rickshaw, but much too big for the man currently wheezing his way towards the livery. With a muted thud, he set down the two large poles of wood that jutted out from the front of the cart and walked into the building to retrieve his horse.

Glancing around quickly, he saw that no one was watching and darted to the back of the cart, where there was a small door. The back of the cart was tilted up slightly, making it somewhat difficult to clamber up and crawl into it, but he managed, though not without landing in a heap towards the front of the cart. Crawling back up towards the back of the cart, he managed to reach out and shut the door--apparently just in time, too, as seconds later the cart tilted back up to its' normal position and he was thrown forcibly into the wooden door. After rubbing his head and cursing silently, the cart jostled and began to move forwards.

He knew he didn't have much time, so he quickly scrambled towards the front of the cart--as far away from the door as possible--and scrunched himself down as small as he could go in a corner, after covering himself with an old blanket he'd found. He was pretty sure these guards wouldn't bother to check the inside of the cart, but he was going to be careful, just in case.

Moments later, the cart stopped and he heard a command he'd become very familiar with over the past two weeks.

"Halt. State your name and business." He heard a rustling sound as the man produced the needed papers.

"Ruuro Sasaki, merchant of Wind Country, eh? Very well. Please sign out here." The scritch-scratch of pen against paper, and then:

And then they were moving. And he felt rather than saw when they passed the gate, because it was like an enormous weight had been lifted off of his chest.

He was free.

~o0o~

The next week was not an easy one. The moment he was safely out of the village, he had wanted to burst out of the cart and run around and laugh and do whatever the hell he wanted because he was free-

But, he suspected (correctly) that Ruuro-san would not take too kindly to the knowledge that he had smuggled a stowaway out of Fire country--(though Naruto would also learn that a child wasn't the only thing he was smuggling)--so he somehow forced himself to stay put until it was dark out and they stopped for the night to rest. (They had also stopped several times during the day, and Naruto had had to dart back into his corner and hide since this usually meant Ruuro was coming back into the cart to dip into his food stores, which Naruto borrowed from shamelessly.)

He had also planned on leaving the merchant behind as soon as night fell and he could exit the cart safely, but the first night they had stopped in the middle of the forest, (and though he was ecstatic that he was now able to run around freely--though more silently than he would have liked--and finally use the bathroom,) the giant, dark forest also made him feel more alone than he had ever felt--and that was saying something. So he decided to stick with Sasaki and his relatively poor company for however far he traveled, or until Naruto came to a place that he felt compelled to stay.

So, it wasn't an easy week--every time the merchant stopped he was afraid he'd been caught, and up until he noticed a small knothole on the wooden floor of the cart, he'd had to hold his bladder for 14 hours at a time--but it was certainly an interesting one. The first night they had stopped in the woods, but on the second night they came to an inn, and though Naruto obviously didn't get to sleep in a bed, he did get to explore the town a bit.

He had never been in a civilian town before, and he honestly wasn't sure what he thought about it. It was just too weird, and the people didn't look all that nice. He had decided to stay with Sasaki for another day.

During the day, while traveling in the cart, the only thing he really had to do was eat, drink, sleep, and poke around the merchandise in the cart. While most of it was pretty useless--big bolts of silk that would be ripped to shreds in any kind of fight, chokingly strong perfumes, fancy teas--he found a few things that he was pretty sure weren't supposed to be there, but had decided would be good to have around.

One was a rather beautiful sword that was nearly as tall as he was. It was a slightly-curved ninja-style katana, with a black leather shoulder strap and scabbard, and a dark blue crosspiece, with wrappings the same color blue covering the black hilt. The blade itself was nearly black, but the single edge was almost silver.

He also found a variety of scrolls, most of which were full of poetry or philosophy, but there were also several scrolls on chakra formation, manipulation, and control, as well as several E to C ranked ninjutsu scrolls that all bore the seal of Konoha, so he guessed they were stolen.

Well, nothing wrong with taking from a thief, right?

Right.

They had stopped in two other towns besides the one they had visited the second night, but for the last three days in a row, when the cart had stopped for Ruuro to take out his tent and sleep, it had been in the middle of the day. Not only that, but when Naruto was finally sure that he was asleep and ventured out of the cart, all he saw was sand.

He had never seen anything like it.

This place was hot and dry during the day, and freezing cold at night--and he had never been more grateful for the relative shelter the cart provided him until that moment.

Now, though, after three days, he was starting to get a little concerned. Because even after traveling for what seemed like an eternity, he could still see nothing but sand in every direction when he ventured outside the cart.

That, and they were almost out of water.

Those worries were immediately banished by a loud, commanding voice...

"Halt! State your name and business."

...and reawakened a set of old ones.

He sat in a frozen panic as Ruuro finished checking into the gate of the village--_a ninja village, it had to be, they're gonna find me, no, no, no_--and the cart bucked forward once again, leading him deeper and deeper inside his new prison.

He clambered up to the door of the cart and peeked outside, but he couldn't see more than flashes of brown, yellow and white, along with sunlight so bright it hurt his eyes after being in the cart so long.

As soon as the cart came to a stop, he flung open the door and bolted down the street.

He managed to dart around the startled pedestrians without bowling anyone over, but the sword was pretty heavy on his back, and his bag kept tripping him up, and he had just stolen from that guy, even if he was a thief, so he had to be right on his heels by now...

He shot a quick, fearful look behind him and nearly tripped in surprise.

Ruuro and the cart were nowhere in sight.

He slumped in relief against a rough, sandy wall near the edge of an alley, trying to catch his breath.

And then he thought about what he'd just done.

He had panicked when he realized they were back in a ninja village, and had bolted from the cart without thinking about anything other than exiting the gate... except he probably couldn't do that when he wasn't in the cart...

...and now that it was broad daylight, he couldn't sneak back into Ruuro's cart, either, especially not after he had just stolen from the man...

...and it would take weeks before he could figure out how to get out like he did in Konoha...

...which meant he really was trapped here, now.

He slunk further into the alley and curled up into a ball, clutching his hair on the sides of his heads, and began to weep.

~o0o~

He knew he couldn't stay in the alley forever, so after the sun set, he crept back out of the alley, bracing himself to face the stares, the hatred, the coldness...

...and instead got the biggest shock of his young life.

There were a lot of people out for this time of night--and he did see some wearing headbands, confirming once and for all that this was a ninja village--and a lot of them did stare at him, many indifferent, but also many curious, and some...

He nearly fell to his knees when someone actually _smiled_ at him.

This...

So... maybe, not all ninja villages were bad? Was it just Konoha that hated him? Sure, no one in the civilian villages had been outright hateful towards him, but no one had smiled either...

For the first time in a long time, he felt warmth bubble up in his chest.

So what if he was stuck here?

Somehow, he didn't think he'd mind all that much.

~o0o~

A/N - Not a very original idea, I know. But I've seen it done poorly so many times that I felt the need to do it myself (though whether i've made any improvement in quality is up to you guys.) So, tell me what you think!


	2. The boy on the swing

Naruto was feeling bold, and carefree, and utterly happy and light—states of mind he had rarely been in even one at a time, so to experience them all at once was somewhat overwhelming.

Yet despite all of the positive feelings buoying him up, he was still a little wary about his situation because he had _no idea_ where the heck he was and what he was going to do with himself now that he was here.

He figured the people who lived here could probably give him some advice...

But that was where his biggest problem lay: he didn't know if he could bring himself to approach a stranger.

Even though no one had been hateful or cruel to him yet, he still wasn't sold on the idea of trusting... well, _anyone_, really, but especially not some random villager.

God only knew he'd gotten enough negative reinforcement in the past for _daring_ to ask a question.

But... maybe if he asked a child...? They weren't nearly as intimidating... and couldn't really hurt him physically, at least, if they were so inclined.

He caught sight of a little girl, not too much older than him, sweeping sand out of her front door and into the street. He tried to approach her as meekly and silently as possible, but she still noticed him when he was a few feet away. He flinched when she glanced up at him in annoyance, but she didn't really look that mad at him, just frustrated with her chore.

If he had to sweep all of the sand out of a house _made_ out of sand, he'd be pretty annoyed, too.

"Ummm..." he attempted to start a conversation. She stopped sweeping and leaned against the broom handle.

"What?" She wasn't ignoring him, at least!

"This is probably a weird question... but, um, what village am I in right now?" She shot him a very impressive 'are-you-stupid?' look and then gave a forceful sweep of her broom, sending a pile of sand airborne into the street.

"We're in _Sunagakure no Sato, _dummy! Where else would you be?"

Suna? As in the village hidden in the sand?

The afore-mentioned grainy particles she had swept into the air settled onto his exposed toes.

Well, that was... kind of really obvious, now that he thought about it.

It really _was _a stupid question.

"Ehehe... sorry, I forgot..." he grinned, scratching the back of his head. She just rolled her eyes and waved him off.

"Idiot, how can you forget something like that?" She turned around and went back to her sweeping.

He might have left it at that-he still wasn't completely comfortable with talking to people-but he still had questions he needed answered:

Like, where was he going to live?

"Err..." The girl looked back up at him in annoyance, only this time it seemed more directed at him.

She hadn't been nice to him, exactly, but would anyone else even bother to answer his questions? Sure, he'd seen some people on the street today that _acted _nice, but he knew he couldn't take that at face value.

Never again.

Well, it couldn't hurt to try...

"Do you... know where the orphanage is?" It wasn't that he particularly _wanted _to live in the orphanage again, but it was either that or sleeping in an alley. Which he had done before, but it was far from pleasant. So even if living in another orphanage was not something he really wanted to do, it was better than the alternative.

At his hesitant question, her annoyance dulled and a thoughtful look appeared on her features.

"Sort of... hmmm... i've only been there once to visit my friend... let's see... it's pretty close to the Kage tower... you know, that big, giant, bubble shaped building with the 'Wind' kanji on it? In case you 'forgot'," she added dryly.

"Yeah, of course I know!" He didn't, but if it was as big as she said it was, he'd be able to find it.

"Right," she looked at him skeptically, "well, I don't know how to tell you to get there from here, but it's _really _close to the tower, so just ask someone to point you there when you get to the tower."

"Ah, well..." Surely he would be able to find at least _one _more person willing to talk to him when he got there, right?

"What?"

"Err, nothing. Ah, but, thank you, er..." Was he supposed to ask for her name, or what?

"It's Asahi Mera. And you...?" Burning morning sun? That _was a_ pretty cool name, but his was better!

"Uzumaki Naruto!" She made a weird face.

"...fishcake?"

"Ack! No, no, it's _Maelstrom Whirlpool!_ Not _fishcake..._" As much as he liked eating the things, he certainly didn't want to be _called_ that. That wasn't awesome-sounding at all!

She just shrugged.

"If you say so... fishy-kun," she laughed. He didn't think it was so funny, though.

"Humph. Well, whatever, I gotta get going, so uh, thanks again, Mera!"He grinned brightly and ran off in a random direction.

"You're welcome!" She yelled after him. She shook her head as she resumed her sweeping.

_Idiot... doesn't know the name of the village... and what kind of name is fishcake anyway?_

Then she realized something.

"Hey! Dummy! You're going in the wrong direction!" But he was far enough away that he did not hear her yell.

~o0o~

Despite his earlier error in direction, he eventually managed to find the Kage tower without _too _much running around. Once he was in the square surrounding the massive structure, he gathered the courage to ask an adult for directions to the orphanage. The man, smiling, had pointed down a side street and told him to take a left past the Soba stand. From there, he said, Naruto should be able to see the orphanage.

He followed the man's directions to the letter, and he did indeed come across the orphanage like he said he would...

...only now that he was actually _seeing _the place, he was starting to reconsider the alley.

The place was an absolute _dump_! Sure, the orphanage back ho-in Konoha-was no mansion, and his apartment hadn't been all that nice either, but _this_...

It was a squat, roundish, sand-colored structure like most of the buildings he had seen during his brief stay here, but unlike the others, he could see cracks running all up and down the buildings' sandstone front, looking for all the world like it was about to shatter under its' own weight. There were piles of trash littering the ground surrounding the place, and what few windows he could see were small, damaged, or not even there at all-just covered with wooden planks.

He weighed his options. On the one hand, the orphanage-probably-had beds, while the alley for sure would not. Also, even if it was minimal, the orphanage would shield him from the elements, whereas he would be exposed out in the alley. Even though it had only been a little while since the sun went down, it was already getting cold. Very cold. He also hadn't eaten in nearly 24 hours, so whatever the orphanage was handing out, even if it was gruel, would be better than what he could scrounge out of the garbage.

Yet even with all of the relative 'perks' the orphanage held over the alley option, there was a downside to it that almost cancelled out all of the positives.

He would have to live with other children here.

That was ultimately the reason he had left the orphanage for his apartment back in Konoha-because even though it had been terrible to come home to an empty apartment every day, it had been even worse to come back and find that his clothes were missing, or his bed was covered in hoisin sauce and insects, or to find that he'd been wrongfully blamed for writing on the wall or breaking a window, or that the other children were waiting in a group to pounce on him...

So lost was Naruto in his resentful musings that he did not notice the girl approaching him until she spoke right into his ear.

"What'sa matter?" He flinched so violently that he actually fell on his butt. Startled, the girl took a few steps back and stared at his prone form in confusion. He was looking up at her with wide, surprised-almost fearful-eyes, and even as he pushed himself to his feet he scooted farther away from her.

"Uhh…. Sorry there, pal. Didn't mean to, uh, scare you like that…" she said uncertainly, scratching her head. For his part, Naruto was blushing slightly and avoiding her eyes in embarrassment.

"Ah, no, I wasn't scared, you just surprised me is all…" He stood there awkwardly for a moment, letting his words trail off into silence. What was he supposed to do now?

"What's your name?" He blurted out suddenly, and immediately regretted it. He remembered hearing somewhere that it was very rude to ask for someone's name before giving out their own. Or at least he thought that was the rule. At any rate, he remembered getting less than positive responses to his similar straightforward attempts at learning his new academy classmates' names—the rejections from the girls had been particularly violent.

His worries, though not unfounded, were soon relieved however, for they barely had time to even cross his mind before the girl smiled and replied in a friendly tone.

"Oh, I'm Nasamu Eiko, what's yours?" Caught flatfooted by her unexpected reaction, he could only gape.

He must have been making a very strange face because after looking at it for only a few seconds Eiko began to giggle. The sound of her laughter seemed to return him to his senses, though, and he snapped his mouth shut.

"What are you laughing at?" He asked warily. Was she just playing a joke on him or something?

"Just…snrrk…your face!" Before he had time to even be offended by that remark she continued. "You look like a fish when you do that!" He made a choking sound.

"I don't look like a fish!" he contested, pouting.

"Sure you do! Fish have big lips, see?" And here she pointed to his face, where, indeed, a rather large set of pouty lips resided. He pulled his lips into his mouth.

"Mhhy dnt hhhvff bgg lfffs, hhyyy?"

"You even have gills!" She continued, ignoring his mumbled protest.

"Mhhls?"

"Yeah, on your cheeks!" She was about to poke one such bewhiskered cheek, but at the sight of her hand coming rapidly towards his face he flinched and jumped away from her. Startled, again, Eiko's teasing demeanor vanished.

"Ahh, sorry, I didn't mean to…" she trailed off and watched as Naruto seemed to gather himself and walked back up to her, though not as close as he had been before.

"It's alright. I just, um,…"

"Don't like people touching you, ha?" She said softly.

"Well, no, it's not, I mean," he floundered with his words, trying to find a way to say that he didn't _mind _being touched so much as he wasn't used to it. Eventually, though, he gave up and huffed out a simple 'yes' in response.

Eiko blinked in confusion at his bumbling reply, but eventually just shrugged and let the matter rest.

"So, were you looking for someone here, or what?" She asked brightly.

"Huh?"

"Well, you were just standing there staring at the orphanage for like, five minutes…"

"Oh, right. Well, um, you see…" Eiko seemed nice enough. Maybe the other kids would be too…?

"I was just going to, um, canIstayhereplease?" He blurted out all at once.

"…I'm sorry, could you repeat that?"

"IjustwantedtoknowifI—"

"Whoa, slow down there!" She interjected. "Now, say that again. _Slowly._" He took a deep breath.

"Can I stay here, please?" She blinked.

"Here?" He nodded. "…in the road?" She asked incredulously.

"Huh?"

"Why do you want to know if you can stay in the road?" She continued on, either ignoring or simply not hearing his response. Her face was screwed up in confusion, and she rubbed her chin thoughtfully as she mumbled possible explanations to herself. "He was already just standing there anyway, so why'd he need to ask if he could keep doing it? Maybe he was trying to make sure it wasn't someone's yard? That would be the polite thing to do, although why he'd want to just stand around in the same spot is a mystery. Though I suppose…"

"Oi!" He shouted, waving a hand in front of her face. That seemed to be enough to snap her out of it.

"Hmm?" He resisted the urge to roll his eyes. She was kind of weird, but she had been nice to him. The least he could do was not be a jerk back.

"I was talking about staying there," he pointed toward the orphanage, "not in the road." Her eyes lit up.

"Oh! Well, that makes a lot more sense." A minute of silence.

"Uhhh, Eiko-ch…chan?" He choked on the honorific. Was that too familiar? She didn't seem to mind, though.

"Yeah?"

"So…can I stay?" She looked thoughtful for a minute. Finally she responded.

"Stay where?" He couldn't help it: he face-vaulted.

Recovering before she could ask him why he'd decided to take a nap in the street, he repeated his earlier question, this time making sure to be specific.

"Do you know if I can stay here in the orphanage or not?" She shrugged.

"Are you an orphan?"

"Well, yeah…"

"Then you can stay!" She proclaimed happily. "C'mon!" She then proceeded to beckon him towards the orphanage, all the while regaling him with stories of her friends and the people that lived there. Luckily, she didn't ask where he had been living before—maybe she just thought he'd just fallen out of the sky? Or maybe she just didn't care—but he figured he'd better think up a story pretty soon. If any adults suddenly noticed him living here, he doubted they'd just let him stay without _some _sort of explanation. At this point, he was only half-listening to her pleasant chatter, up until…

"Well, fishy-chan, I know that you'll probably—"

"What?" He choked out. "I do NOT look like a fish!" And fishy-_chan_! That was even worse than fishy-_kun_! What was up with these ridiculous nicknames!

"Fine, fine, " Eiko huffed. "Then what's your real name, huh?" He hesitated. Would she make the connection?

"Well?"

"…Naruto," he muttered.

Needless to say, the nickname stuck, and the rest of Eiko's tour-guide speech was interspersed with giggles.

~o0o~

_Creak, creak._

It was bright outside, in the middle of the day,

_Creak, creak._

But he was in the shade.

_Creak, creak._

He thought he liked the dark.

_Creak, creak._

Or, at least, he was afraid of the light.

_Creak, creak._

He didn't belong there.

_Creak, creak._

That was where the other children played, like they were doing now.

_Creak, creak._

They were all laughing and yelling.

_Creak, creak._

It looked like a lot of fun.

_Creak, creak._

He squeezed his stuffed bear tighter.

_Creak, creak._

'_Monster, Demon, Freak'_

_Creak, creak. _

He didn't dare join them.

_Creak, creak._

No, he would stay here in the dark, on _his _swing, and watch them.

_Creak, creak._

He knew all of their faces, by now.

_Creak, creak._

So he noticed the new face among them, today.

_Creak, creak._

Happy, laughing.

_Creak, creak._

He had blue eyes, and blonde hair.

_Creak, creak._

Just another laughing face in the crowd.

_Creak, creak._

Just another happy child.

_Creak, creak._

_Creak, creak. _

_Creak, creak._

~o0o~

Naruto could now officially say that this had been the greatest week of his life.

Nobody seemed to hate him.

He had a bunch of new friends.

He had a decent place to stay—the orphanage had looked much nicer on the inside than he'd expected—and enough food to never be truly hungry.

In short, his life was _perfect_, as far as he was concerned.

That's not to say his stay in Suna had been without problems, though, especially in the beginning.

It had taken three days before one of the caretakers at the orphanage noticed an extra kid running around, and when the man confronted him about his origins, he'd just said his parents had died—which they had, six years ago, just not recently—and claimed he didn't have any paperwork—which was also true: it was probably buried in some filing cabinet back in Konoha. Surprisingly, the man didn't ask any more questions and told him to claim an empty bed on the third floor.

No, what had really been giving him trouble this past week was the pile of treasure he'd nicked from Sasaki's wagon. During his Eiko-guided tour of the orphanage, the easily-distracted girl had noticed his strange bundle of scrolls and the wrapped-up sword strapped to his back. She pestered him about them, but he—as nicely as possible—told her "heck no! This is my stuff, I don't want people playing with it!" She grudgingly dropped the issue after that, though he did notice that the next day everyone seemed mysteriously aware of his new nickname…

But that had really been the only trouble he'd had. After Eiko had left him to settle in, the first thing he did was find a proper hiding place for his goods—and he felt totally confident that no one would find it, because if there was one thing he was good at, it was finding places to hide.

So, unhindered by worries of theft, starvation, or pursuit, he'd spent the past six days doing what he'd always wanted to do: being a normal kid.

_Man, I never knew that other kids played ball this much…_

"Hey! That's cheating! You can't just…" Naruto scratched his head and smiled nervously as yet another squabble broke out between the two teams' captains.

"It was SO fair, Daiku! Just ask…" Just about every day all of the children in the orphanage, and even some that had families, would spend _hours _out here playing fun. It was hot, he was sweaty and tired and thirsty, the other kids seemed to squabble as much as they actually played the game…

…and he loved every minute of it.

By this point, one of the older children had helped settle the little fight—in his teams' favor!—and Naruto hopped back over to his position, where he was greeted by an old friend.

"Fishy-kun," Mera nodded towards him without taking her eyes off the field.

Well, an old friend by his standards, anyway. Considering all of his friendships were less than a week old, she fit the title. The day after he'd settled down in his new home, Mera had stopped by to visit that friend of hers she'd mentioned—which just happened to be Eiko-chan, to everyone's surprise—and, Mera added, 'to make sure that fish-baka hadn't ended up running around all night.' Shortly after that, the two girls had sort of ganged up on him. It was the first time he had ever been the victim of good-natured teasing…and he still wasn't sure if he liked it or not.

"Sunshine-chan," he rebutted. She just snorted.

"I'm not gonna answer to that stupid name," she said in a sing-song voice.

"But it's your nickname!" He whined.

"No it isn't! It isn't a nickname if only you call me that!"

"Sure it is! And besides, I let you call me fish-boy!" He reasoned.

"_Let _me? Pffft, yeah right. And since everyone calls you that, it's—look out!" They had both gotten a little caught up in their argument, so it was only through sheer instinct that Naruto managed to turn his attention back towards the field just as his foot snapped up to kick the ball away.

"Woah…" Several children collectively mumbled as the ball sailed up into the air, flying past the field and beyond.

"Uhhh…" Oops. Mera turned to glare at him.

"Way to go, baka! You kicked it into the cliffs!" The way the other children were all turning to glare at him too was eerily familiar. He suddenly felt like bolting.

"Umm, sorry about that, guys," he gulped. Then he smiled so wide his eyes crinkled shut. "But don't worry! I'll go up there and get it!" He ran away as fast as he could towards the cliffs, ignoring their shouted warnings about the creepy abandoned playground where the ghosts and monsters lived.

Ghosts and monsters? Ha! He wasn't afraid of no ghosts!

_But people?_ He thought idly as he pounded up the winding path of the stony cliffs. _Now, people can be scary…_

~o0o~

Someone was coming.

That was the thought at the forefront of his mind, the knowledge that was churning his normally subdued thoughts into a swell of panic, anticipation, and sheer terror.

_Someone is coming, someone is coming,,, _towards _me…!_

The agony and excitement had started when he saw one of the children kick the ball too hard, sending it hurtling towards the prepice just below his position. That alone had startled him. Their games _never _drifted this close to his cliff. Would they abandon their ball? Would they stop playing?

Shortly after this, he heard the children erupt in a chorus of shouts, seemingly directed at him, but when he stopped to listen…

'_No, don't go up there! That place is haunted!'_

'_My mom told me to never go up there! She said monsters live up there!'_

Their warnings puzzled him. He knew for a fact that nothing lived up here. And no one ever came up here, either.

Just him and him alone.

And then he'd realized something: they weren't shouting at him, so who…?

That was when the panic set in: someone was headed his way to get the ball, and they were yelling at him to stop.

Someone was coming.

Someone was _coming_!

Which left him in his current predicament. Should he run? Should he stay? He could already hear the loud slap of feet running up the stone path…

He gripped the chains of the swing with trembling hands.

_I'll stay,_ he decided.

He didn't even have time to change his mind, for at that very moment, a blonde-haired boy came rocketing up the path, only to skid to a halt right in front of him.

For twenty, long, fateful seconds, he stared him in the eyes and said nothing.

_It's the new kid,_ he realized.

Carefully, the newcomer spoke.

"Hey," the blonde began. He let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding—he could detect no hostility in his voice, or fear. "..did you see where our ball landed? I thought I kicked it right here, but…" he trailed off into silence, and a sudden nervousness came into his features. He felt his throat constrict: the blonde boy was going to run.

Much to his surprise, though, the boy continued, though now he could hear fear in his voice.

"You're not… you know… a, a _ghost _or something, right?" The question confused him a little—he was obviously not a dead person, wasn't he? Of course, he wasn't exactly sure what a ghost looked like, either, but…

"No." He nearly jumped at the sound of his own voice. He heard it so rarely that he could barely recognize it, gravelly from disuse as it was.

His answer seemed to put the other boy at ease, however, as the blonde boy's previously cheerful features settled back into place. That look of happiness on the boys' face, for some reason, caused a… a _painful _feeling to erupt in his chest.

"Oh, good!" The boy responded, ignorant of his internal struggle. "I was worried there for a second—I mean, I don't _really _believe in ghosts and stuff, but with the way everyone was scared of this place…" He scratched his blonde head. "Ne, so anyway, did you see where the ball went?"

Carefully placing his stuffed bear down on the swing, he got up and slowly shuffled towards the edge of the cliff. He felt like he was in a daze—like, like one of those _dreams_ he had heard about, where everything he saw wasn't really real.

He hoped this wasn't a dream. He hoped that someone was actually talking to him, being friendly.

He also hoped it wasn't a dream because dreams only happened when you were asleep.

He wasn't allowed to sleep. If he slept he'd get in trouble.

And he had never wanted to cause trouble.

The blonde boy shuffled aside as he passed him, giving him room to walk up to the edge of the cliff.

"It's right there," he whispered, pointing. The blonde boy peered down as well.

"Aww, man!" He exclaimed right in his ear, nearly making him topple over. "There's no way I can get down there!" Indeed, there was no path that led to that particular section of cliff.

_He_ didn't need to be near things to move them, though.

He knew the boy would run as soon as he saw him use his gift, but it was the least he could do after talking to him.

He would help.

Wordlessly, he stretched his arm forth and willed the sand underneath the ball to rise, creasing his brow in concentration as he floated the ball up to their level and brought it to rest at the feet of the now stunned blonde.

He looked away from his face and waited for him to run.

Instead, he got the biggest shock of his young life. Throwing his arms up into the air the blonde exclaimed,

"THAT'S SO COOL! What's your name, kid?" He stared at him gaping. Finally, after thinking for a moment, his mouth formed the words.

"…Gaara."

Unbeknownst to either of them, that brief exchange of words would mark the beginning of a life-long friendship.

~o0o~

**A/N **– Finally finished! So, this chapter turned out all right, I guess. I'm happy enough with it to post, at least. Sorry for the wait, but my muse has been rather distracted of late… I'll try to get the next one up in a (somewhat) timely manner, but don't expect a set schedule of updates. I finish the chapter when I finish the chapter, people! (Although, reviews do encourage me to work faster ;) )

Also! I might have put this somewhere already, but this will NOT be a yaoi story. Sorry.

As always, comments and questions are welcome.


	3. Nightmare come true

**DISCLAIMER: **Do I even really need to say it? I don't own Naruto.

~o0o~

There was nothing extraordinary about the day, other than the extremely pleasant weather—which, in the temperate climate of Fire Country, happened often enough to render the perfectly clear blue skies and balmy air of little note.

Things in the village had been running smoothly today. Not so smoothly as to be suspicious, though, as over the years he had picked up a superstition from one of his former students that an inordinate amount of good luck was an omen of impending misfortune. No, the day had been marked by an even enough mixture of frustrations and successes that one could not possibly blame an intervention of fate as their origin.

Simply put, the day was absolutely, completely ordinary.

But Sarutobi Hiruzen was not considered the premier shinobi in the village for nothing, and as such, had long since developed a sense of intuition so strong that it bordered on premonition.

And right now it was screaming at him that something was about to go very, very wrong.

Had he been a normal man in his seventies, he might have considered the sense of foreboding in the back of his mind to be an indicator of an imminent heart attack, but no ninja worth his salt ever had to worry about any malady related to lack of physical activity. And while Hiruzen certainly didn't train as hard as he used to, and despite the myriad distractions and obligations that seemed to consume his waking hours, he didn't let himself go. He had a country to run and protect, after all.

No, the elder Sarutobi knew that the dark feeling in the back of his mind was not a warning of any threat to his person. After being Hokage for so long, he recognized the sensation as a leader's instinct that something dreadful was about to befall his people, even if they were as of yet unaware.

It didn't help at all that he had a pretty good idea of just what—or who, rather—would be the source of this tragedy.

Staring out of his office window, Sarutobi Hiruzen, Third Fire Shadow of the Village Hidden in the Leaves, sipped his tea calmly as he waited for the axe to drop.

~o0o~

Gaara was confused.

Though a rather intelligent boy, his life was such that this was not an uncommon occurrence. Many things happened to him that he did not understand. People hated him. People feared him. People refused to even come near him, if they could help it. Even Uncle Yashamaru seemed to avoid touching him as much as possible.

But this boy—Naruto, the strange blonde's name was _Naruto_, he had learned—had not only been open and friendly to Gaara, but had reached out and volunatarily _grasped his hand_… Gaara, stunned by the unexpected contact, was helpless to resist as Naruto led him back down the path to the field.

Though he was still aware enough to listen to what Naruto had to say, fortunately.

"Oi, Gaara! What're ya' stayin' up here all by yourself for anyway? C'mon, come back to the field with me! You can join my team!"

_Join the game?_ An anxious knot twisted in his stomach. _Could I really…?_

It was something Gaara had often imagined himself doing… but his fear of rejection had always outweighed his desire to participate. He was still hesitant, but he had just been invited into the game by another child… would that make a difference, though? He wasn't so sure…

Despite his apprehension, Gaara's feet continued to move forward.

Naruto, meanwhile, was chuckling gleefully. "Man, with that cool sand trick of yours, our team's gonna kick their butts!"

Gaara frowned. _Is that what you're supposed to do when you play? _He personally did not think that his going up to a child and kicking them in the rear would be well received, but figured that the blonde would know more about the rules than he would.

Naruto must have noticed his expression, however, because he turned and gave Gaara a frown of his own as his features filled with concern.

"Hey, you don't mind playing, do you?" Gaara felt his lungs seize up. The worry in Naruto's voice—worry for _him_, because he _cared _how Gaara felt—combined with the warm unfamiliar contact of Naruto's hand holding his, caused some feeling that Gaara had no name for to bloom in his chest, and his eyes to prickle.

Not trusting his voice at the moment, he merely nodded 'no'. Naruto beamed.

"Great! Then let's hurry back!"

At that moment in time, had Naruto asked, Gaara would have willingly followed him into the flaming center of hell.

~o0o~

_He's a little weird,_ Naruto decided, _but he seems like a nice kid._

Naruto had been singularly focused on finding the missing ball as he raced up the side of the cliff, but he wasn't so oblivious as to miss the strange kid just sitting there on the swing, watching him with wide, frightened eyes.

That had distracted him quite a bit. Not only were his eyes a little weird looking—was that makeup?—but the little redhead was staring at Naruto like he was about to swallow him whole. It was a look he was very familiar with, as it had been directed at him many times by more than a few villagers.

And it terrified him to no end, thinking that the people here in Suna were suddenly going to start hating him, too.

Pressing on in spite of this, Naruto soon realized to his great relief—(after confirming that he was not, in fact, a ghost)—that Gaara wasn't really scared of _him_, in particular, but just seemed to be very shy. Though he didn't really understand the sentiment—(how were you supposed to get acknowledged if you stayed quiet and hid in a corner all the time?)—he could accept that some people were just that way.

But Gaara wouldn't be that way for much longer if he could help it! The kid had been nice enough to help him with getting the ball back, so the least Naruto could do was help his new friend make more friends of his own.

That, and he _really _wanted to see what else Gaara could do with that sand of his.

During the trip back down the hill, Naruto had been the one doing most of the talking, while Gaara would usually remain silent unless asked a direct question. At one point however, Gaara voiced a question of his own.

"Are you sure they'll let me play?" His voice was so quiet that Naruto almost didn't catch what he said.

Scratching the back of his head, Naruto wondered, "Why wouldn't they?" Gaara didn't answer, and the next minute was spent in silence, which ended when they reached the bottom of the hill and Gaara dropped Naruto's hand and stopped walking.

"What's wrong?" Naruto asked, frowning. Gaara's shoulders were hunched and his hands were fisted at his sides. His eyes, already dark, were shadowed as he stared towards the ground. After a moment, though, he seemed to gather himself as he stood up straight and looked forward with wary determination. He continued walking forward without a word. Naruto, puzzled, kept pace by his side.

Coming closer to the field, Naruto could now make out the faces of his friends. A few seemed to have abandoned the game, perhaps thinking that he wouldn't bring the ball back. Others were still staring worriedly at the cliff face, apparently having not seen him approaching yet. He waved his hand in the air and shouted, drawing their attention to him.

"Hey, guys, I got it!" he yelled triumphantly, motioning to the ball in his other hand.

What happened next would be burned in his memories forever.

The other children, his friends, upon hearing his voice, turned as one from the direction of the cliffs towards him. Their faces displayed a wide range of emotion at his return, from relief to irritation, unhappiness to happiness. But again, as one, as if a hidden signal had been given, their varying reactions morphed into identical expressions of naked terror. Those who had been returning his wave seemed to redirect the friendly gesture in an instant, now pointing at him and trembling in fear. Shouts of recognition had been replaced by cries of surprise, wailing, and not-so-muttered curses.

"It's the demon, run!"

"Get away from us, freak!"

"Monster!"

The ball slipped out of Naruto's nerveless grasp, rolling away from his feet with a soft _crackle_ over the sand. Eyes wide and unseeing, he slowly shook his head in denial.

'_No…no…no…' _he chanted under his breath.

Not here. Not them, his friends.

Not again.

His feet, almost of their own accord, began to shuffle backwards, fleeing from the nightmare before him. He felt an odd sense of detachment as his unblinking gaze swept over the hateful sea of faces, shifting and churning. At some point—it could have been hours or seconds later, he couldn't tell—some of the faces vanished from the crowd as several children turned and ran, apparently unable to handle his presence any longer.

'_No, please… don't… don't leave…' _ He wished he could reach out and keep them here, because even _this _was better than being alone…

"Don't leave…me…" Naruto was shocked back into awareness as he heard his own thoughts spoken by another. At the same moment, a small hand clenched around his wrist in a death grip, jerking him towards its owner. He turned.

It was Gaara, staring at him with pleading, panicked eyes. Naruto's mind was too muddled to make sense of his expression, and could do nothing but stare.

"What…" he finally managed, and a slight pain registered in Naruto's mind as Gaara's grip around his arm tightened. A wild, desperate look crawled into his features, and a nearly-inhuman fire lit in his eyes.

"Don't leave…Don't leave me… Don't! YOU CAN"T LEAVE ME!" Gaara commanded, his voice evolving from a frantic whisper to a raspy howl. Sand began whipping up around them as Gaara's emotions surged out of control, and Naruto gasped in pain as Gaara's grip was suddenly aided by a thick, snaking column of sand. Being in a reactionary state of mind, Naruto attempted to pull away from the attack on instinct, but this only made the sand squeeze tighter. He heard, then felt, a bone in his arm give with a grinding _crack_, and cried out in pain.

"Somebody stop it! It's hurting Naruto!" It took a few seconds for the shouted words to register in Naruto's pain-hazed mind, but when they did, his head snapped around to the source of the voice.

It was Mera, looking at him, then from side to side, then at him again, as if searching for someone to stop…it?

It.

_It…_is hurting Naruto, she had said.

With a jolt he realized that the fearful stares of the children were not directed at him, but slightly to his right.

They were not afraid of him…

…but of Gaara.

His pain, having been pushed to the edges of his awareness in the wake of that starling revelation, suddenly reasserted itself as his skin was literally scoured away from his flesh.

Naruto screamed and struggled, thinking of nothing but escaping the painful clutch of the sand. But the pressure of the sand only increased in intensity as it crawled further up his body, now covering his entire right arm and shoulder. His feet found little purchase as he tried to drag himself out of Gaara's grasp, and he was only pulled closer to his assailant. He turned to face the boy.

There was still a trace of pain and desperation in Gaara's expression, but it had been overshadowed by rage, with a hint of unnatural bloodlust that scared him.

"Gaara, stop! You're hurting me!" He yelled, trying to calm him down.

"No… NO! YOU'LL LEAVE!" The sand around Naruto's feet suddenly engulfed them, leaving him with only what upper body strength he could muster to pull away from Gaara.

Another_ crack_, then blinding pain. This time, it radiated from his upper arm. He screamed.

"Gaara, STOP!" The instant the voice was heard Gaara's sand began to loosen, and the dark, twisted anger that had corrupted the child's face suddenly evaporated, leaving his eyes wide and confused. Before he could see anything more, Naruto's vision was blocked as his world suddenly exploded in a shower of sand, his restraints having been destroyed by the person—shinobi—that had just darted between them.

Naruto tumbled backwards onto his back and immediately scrambled away a good distance before getting back to his feet.

The newly arrived shinobi stood with his back towards Naruto, arms spread wide as he cautiously stepped forward, herding Gaara away. The other children had run for the most part, but those who were still there alternated between throwing looks of worry at him, and looks of fear and anger at Gaara. The redhead himself was looking at Naruto in horror, or more specifically, his arm. He slowly raised his hand, as if to reach out and help him, but at the slight motion the shinobi twitched, quickly shuffling to the side to block the Gaara's view of him.

Naruto took all of this in in an instant, his adrenaline-pumped body receiving information at a dizzying rate.

His mind however, already seized up in a refusal to accept everything that he had just seen and experienced, did little to process this information. He only had instinct to guide him, now.

The voices of the others on the field washed over him in a wave, indistinct and murmuring—the children's cries of worry, their shouts of anger; the placating tone of the shinobi as he ushered Gaara away. A faint, 'don't go', whispered through the wind, but it barely registered in his mind before the thought was gone.

Other than a dull pain in his right arm that his mind refused to let his body acknowledge, he felt nothing. Then, a slight tug in some primal corner of his mind came, and he followed the instinctual directive without a thought.

He ran.

~o0o~

His nephew…_It…_had attacked a child today.

It was an appalling, disgusting action, even in the ninja world. Most Kages would sentence such a monster, ninja or civilian, to a long stay in prison, if not death, for attempting to kill another citizen of their village without cause, let alone a child.

Gaara was alone in his room now, most likely playing with his toys.

Loathing—a black, burning creature of loathing twisted and writhed and attempted to claw its way out of Yashamaru's chest, had _been_ trying to break out for six long, meaningless years. Like it always did, it threatened to break him, to consume his sanity and snap his resolve in half. But again, as he always did, time and time again, he tamed it, pushed it back down, locked it away from sight. He took a deep, slightly quaking breath, and his composure was back in place.

Not once had his face betrayed his thoughts.

It was considered extremely poor form for a shinobi to show emotion while giving an official report, after all.

"Anything else of note, jounin Yashamaru?" Yashamaru was kneeling on the floor before the raised dais on which his brother-in-law sat, fixing his eyes just below the Wind Shadow's own to the veil he wore while in full regalia. If the man was upset that the child he fathered had just brutally injured another, he was hiding it well.

"No, Kazekage-sama," he intoned as respectfully as he could manage. He resisted the urge to clench his fists.

"Very well then. And you still have no objections to the special mission which I have assigned you?" Yashamaru hesitated, but only slightly.

"No, Kazekage-sama. I accept my mission and will fulfill my duties to Suna as far as I am able." He received the barest of nods in response.

"Good. You are dismissed, jonin Yashamaru."

"Yes, Kazekage-sama." He stood and bowed, walking backwards out of the room.

Once out of his brother-in-laws' chamber, he straightened and turned, walking slowly towards his next destination. He needed some time to prepare himself before he carried out his next task.

Nearly twenty minutes later, he arrived at a thick wooden door, which had been permanently engraved with the words "DO NOT ENTER WITHOUT AUTHORIZATION" in big, bold letters. He pushed it open quietly, not to reveal a dark, dank corridor, or a foreboding library full of dangerous secrets, but a brightly-lit room, with colorful children's toys littering the floor, rich mahogany shelves full of well-read books lining the walls, and piles of stuffed animals atop the crisp, clean sheets of the enormous, unused bed.

Almost unused, he corrected mentally. The sole occupant of the room was currently kneeling in the middle of it, a switchblade clutched in his upraised hand, poised to stab the other.

Some instinct, buried deep within him, urged Yashamaru to stop the child before he hurt himself. But he didn't. Morbidly curious, he stayed hidden and waited to see what would happen. Gaara swung.

Predictably, the instant before the sharp blade would have sliced into his skin, sand raced over to protect the spot, courtesy of Shukaku. Letting the blade fall out of his grip, Gaara stared at the now-disintegrating clump of sand as it trickled onto his bed. Trembling, he gripped his head and curled into himself, hugging his knees to his forehead.

Leaving Gaara by himself now, worked up as he was, could have…undesirable…consequences. So Yashamaru steeled himself and walked into the room, somewhat noisily, in order to not startle the child and his trigger-happy sand. He stopped at the edge of the bed, and bent his head down to Gaara's level.

"Gaara-sama?" He inquired quietly. The boy flinched slightly, but then his fingers loosened themselves from the fabric of his pants, and his hair. Dropping his hand from his temple, he slowly turned to face Yashamaru.

The man had to force himself not to shudder when looking into those eyes. The pale, pupil-less green orbs stared at him with such frightening intensity that he had to consciously remind himself to breathe.

"Yashamaru…why…?" The boy began, then paused, and swallowed hard. He looked down, away from Yashamaru's face, and the man felt instant relief with those eyes no longer boring into him, as if trying to uncover his true intentions.

"What is pain?" He asked in a small voice, and for a moment, Yashamaru could almost believe that this boy was an innocent little child.

But then reality intruded, and any sympathy that might have formed was crushed in Yashamaru's heart.

As for the question itself… what _was_ pain, really? Surely, he had experienced enough of it to know.

"Pain, Gaara," he began patiently, absentmindedly picking up the switchblade which lay abandoned on the sheets, "is a feeling, which, when felt," he sliced the tip of his pinky finger, watching the crimson liquid erupt from his skin in detached fascination, "is very unpleasant. It is something unbearable."

Like watching as your once proud and mighty country turns into a withered husk, only because the Daimyo decided to go bargain hunting. Like having your twin sister forced into a political marriage, only to cement the shaky ties between the steadily diminishing powers of Suna. Like watching helplessly as your sister is sacrificed yet again for the sake of Suna, only now the price is her life. Like watching her die day by day, for nine long months, only to grow to hate everything about the place her life was given for, including the people. Like hearing her screaming in agony as you guard the door to a room where a demon is being forcibly sealed into her unborn child, only you are under orders to drive away any who would stop the process.

Like hearing her swear, with her last dying breath, that her child would be a curse upon them, and would destroy Suna with the hatred he was grown from.

Like seeing her wish come true.

And like knowing, deep down, that your loyalty to your country ultimately overrides any lingering sentiment of a sister you loved, even if that means you must extinguish the terrible, living testament of her will.

He had tried, so hard, to treasure the last piece of Karura, but he only saw the hatred and bloodlust and selfishness that the child was made from. It might even be a mercy, he told himself, to kill this child, and free whatever remaining fragment of human soul that lived in that pale, hollow shell of sand.

"I…I feel that too…" Gaara whispered tremulously, breaking Yashamaru out of his thoughts, "right in here." He clutched the fabric directly over his heart, and Yashamaru couldn't help but imagine Shukaku in there writhing, clawing the boy's innards to pieces.

"How do you stop pain?" He asked piteously. Yashamaru swallowed. _How, indeed?_

"Well," he began, "physical pain is fairly easy to treat, as long as you have proper equipment." He held up his bleeding finger for Gaara to see, and had to repress a shudder at the way he stared, so entranced, by his blood. Tearing off a small piece of bandage from his arm, Yashamaru wrapped the tiny wound. "Your body usually heals on its own, after a time, and the pain fades with it. But pain in your heart…"

Pain in your heart festers and corrodes and corrupts. It spreads to your mind, consuming your thoughts and very person, until it breaks you. It destroys your soul, picking apart everything that makes you, 'you', until all that's left are bits and pieces, just spare parts of a living human being.

"…is much harder to heal. No medicine or bandage will make it go away." Gaara's brow furrowed, and he looked distressed. Yashamaru did _not _want to make him distressed.

"Then… how? How do you treat heart-pain?" He quickly concluded his explanation.

"Love, Gaara, love can heal your heart," he said, only half believing it himself. The boy just looked confused.

"Yashamaru… what is, 'love'?" _Complicated,_ was the answer that first came to his mind, but he had to wrack his brain for an example that would make sense to the being before him.

"Love…when you love someone, it means that they are precious to you…that you want to protect them, like your sand protects you."

"My sand?" He repeated, questioning.

"Yes." He pointed to the small picture frame by the window, which held a picture of that face so similar to his own, and Yashamaru felt a surge of anger that the boy possessed such a thing. "Your mother loved you," he lied, "and her will lives on in the sand, and keeps you safe," _so you can live on to destroy this place,_ he omitted.

Gaara continued looking at the picture for a moment, then turned to him.

"Do you love me, Yashamaru?" He asked curiously.

A plastic smile. "Of course, Gaara-sama." The boy relaxed and nodded to himself, turning again to stare at the picture.

Nearly two full minutes passed in silence. Fairly reassured of the boy's mental state, he was just about to leave the room when Gaara spoke again.

"I…I hurt him. I didn't mean…Naruto…" Turning towards him, Yashamaru was stunned by the very _human _look of guilt on Gaara's face, and was reminded that somewhere, deep inside, the boy _was._

"Can I…I want to help him. Can you bring me some medicine to take to him?" With the damage his nephew had done to this 'Naruto', the medic doubted mere medicine would help him much, especially since the little boy was ideally being treated in the hospital right now.

"Of course, Gaara-sama." But if it would help keep Gaara calm, then he would do it.

Carefully assembling a paper bag full of bandages, analgesics, topical pain relief cream and sterilizing wipes, Yashamaru mulled over how best to kill Gaara and survive—though, strictly speaking, he wasn't expecting to, and he didn't really care.

But he knew he would have to wait until the boy was outside, alone, with nothing nearby that was easily damaged. The boy usually spent the night on the rooftops, staring at the moon—it was the perfect setting, he thought. If he was fast enough, he might even succeed.

Either way, all of Yashamaru's troubles would be over by tonight.

~o0o~

The sun had just set when Sarutobi felt the chakra signatures of four ANBU flicker into his office behind him. Turning, he addressed the captain, a youth with long, dark hair and a bird mask.

"Crow, report." The ANBU gave a slight bow in acknowledgement and did as he was ordered, in a tone so emotionless that even the Hokage couldn't tell what the boys' opinion on the matter was.

"It is as you suspected—after a thorough search of the village and surrounding forest, we can find no trace of him. Whether dead or alive, Uzumaki Naruto is no longer in the village."

~o0o~

**A/N **– Done! And much faster than the last one, too. So here's the thing, guys: it is a writers' worst nightmare when the material they've spent hours creating goes public and elicits no response whatsoever. I'm not starving for attention, but I would love to hear some feedback people! Even if you hate my story, leave a review and tell me what I'm doing wrong! I don't know about you, but when I'm looking for a story to read, I see how many reviews it has as a good indicator of its quality. So unless people review my story, I probably won't get many reviews, which will cause fewer people to read my stories… so please, if you like what I write, take a minute to leave a review—even just a few words—to help break me out of this vicious cycle of anonymity. Many thanks!


	4. Guilt and Blood

**A/N **– So few reviews… TT_TT Well, for the **4 **people reading this, here's the next chapter…

~o0o~

In the village of Konoha, civilian citizens were, effectively, free to come and go as they pleased. Of course, most people couldn't just up and leave their homes on a whim—they had their social ties and finances to worry about. However, going through a bureaucratic maze was not a factor in keeping Leaf's citizens from traveling—they merely had to sign their name at the gate and they were free to proceed.

This was radically different than some other countries, such as Iwa and Ame, where their citizens, shinobi and civilian alike, were practically captives. They were never permitted to leave the village for non-mission purposes except on the most extraordinary of circumstances, on pain of death. And while this was an acceptable law for active ninja, as they held valuable information and had to be monitored and restricted in their travels, lest they betray their village, it was a rather extreme measure for civilians, as they knew far less than whatever spies had managed to slip into their village—and make no doubt about it, there always _were _spies from other countries in a ninja village, because to weed out all of them would require a security system so paranoid and tight that it would completely cripple their economy.

And though Iwa and Ame were two of the more extreme examples, Konoha was still by far the most lenient in that area, and had the prosperity to show for it. People actually _wanted _to move there, unlike many other villages, because they knew that, if they ended up not wanting to stay, they wouldn't have to. But those who walked into the open arms of Leaf rarely ever wanted to leave.

Unfortunately, none of these rules or trends applied to the case at hand, because Uzumaki Naruto had in no way, shape, or form, wanted to live in Konoha.

And he most definitely was _not _an ordinary citizen.

Immediately after hearing the grave news from ANBU Captain Crow, Sarutobi had assembled no less than three full hunter-nin teams to track down the missing boy. Because tactically speaking, having another village gain the Kyuubi would drastically shake up the careful balance of power between the major nations. Ironically, the bijou were key pieces in keeping the peace, because with everyone having a jinchuuriki, then no country could use theirs against another country without having it neutralized.

To the Hokage, however, such matters seemed secondary at the moment. Because in his mind's eye, all he could see was the boy's body, lying mauled and broken out in the middle of nowhere. Or perhaps shackled up and tortured in some dank cell, deep within the bowels of Iwa…

And while the villagers might throw a celebration, were they to learn of the boy's disappearance—and his lip pulled up in disgust at this, causing everyone in the room to tense—almost all of the ninja grudgingly accepted the necessity of preventing the Kyuubi from falling into another village's hands. Many would panic upon hearing the truth about looming war, and facing the Kyuubi again, and then sow that panic among others. For that reason, Sarutobi decided to keep the situation under wraps, and ordered the hunter-nins and Crow's ANBU squad to treat the object of their missons as an S-class secret—not the first one made about the boy, depressingly enough. But he could not let Naruto's disappearance to be known to any soul outside his office.

So, naturally, as with the other secrecy law regarding the demon vessel, every ninja chuunin and up knew of his absence within the week.

Including one very, very irate Clan Head.

~o0o~

Naruto had run from the field as soon as possible after escaping Gaara's grasp, clambering back up to the abandoned playground on the cliffs. He hadn't wanted anyone coming after him, and figured it was as good a place to hide as any—and it wasn't the first time he'd had to think of a place to hide on the run, so he was reasonably confident of his hidey-hole's security. And indeed, no one _had _come looking for him, at least, not here. It had been hours since he'd first sat down on this swing—though it didn't feel like it—and not a single soul had come by.

It was eerily quiet up there, except for the creaking of the swing, and the wind howling against the grooves of the cliff face. But for the larger part of the day his thoughts had been so cacophonous that he didn't notice.

Now though, long after sunset, he had calmed down enough to think rationally, and pay attention to his surroundings.

The first thing he noticed was that it was cold—very cold, and windy too. He was also hungry and thirsty, and though his arm no longer hurt, really, it was very itchy and covered in dried blood.

But no combination of these minor discomforts could completely distract him from the shock, confusion, and lingering hurt and fear that had come from the actions of the other children today.

His friends at the orphanage…even after getting to know them over this past week, even after being the happiest he had ever been in his life… deep, deep in his soul, so ingrained into his psyche that it was unremovable, was the voice of mistrust, telling him he should have known all along that they would turn on him eventually.

So, while he had hoped with all his heart that life here in Suna would be different, he couldn't really say he hadn't expected them to reject him.

But that didn't make it hurt any less.

Or help him understand _why _he was so intrinsically hated.

If it had just been that—the other kids suddenly noticing that he was a monster or something—it would have hurt, but he would know what to do next. He would just run away again, possibly forever, until he found some place that could tolerate him.

But while the children here had shown they were just as capable of making someone feel unwanted as those in Konoha…

It hadn't been him they had scorned after all.

It was _Gaara_ that they treated that way.

But _why_?

It hurt to try and figure out why people hated him, because he never _could _find anything about himself that was any worse than the people who had friends and families. He was also fearful that there really _was_ something so terrible about him, that he deserved their treatment. And if that was the case, then what? How could he go on living, if he really _was _a monster, somehow?

But now, after seeing Gaara treated in a way so similar to him, Naruto's mind would not rest until it puzzled out the reason, and in doing so, maybe uncover what was wrong with him as well.

Now, Naruto was not the brightest person out there, but this was not for lack of imagination or mental capacity. In fact, he probably had one of the quickest minds out there—when he bothered to put it to use, that is. Thinking was normally uncomfortable for him, and as one of the very few painful things in life he had the ability to avoid, he did so frequently.

But this was too important to ignore. And so he thought.

Why did people hate other people, in the first place? It was because those people had done something bad or mean to them, right? Naruto hated many of the villagers back in Konoha for how they treated him—(thought he couldn't quite bring himself to hate the Old Man, even if he secretly hated Naruto)—but that had always been because they had treated him coldly, first.

So did that mean he'd done something bad to them, first? Before he could even remember?

But how could he have done that? Or Gaara, for that matter? They were kids! What could they have possibly done that hurt _everyone in the village_?

A muscle in Naruto's arm spasmed, healing, and he tilted his head to look at his sleeve, caked in dried blood.

Okay, that answered the question for what _Gaara _could do, but what about him? He couldn't do anything like that, could he?

He frowned. He knew that Gaara's trick with sand had to be part of the answer, but something was a little off about that, and it still didn't explain why _he _was treated that way.

'_Don't leave me!'_ Suddenly, Gaara's words began to replay in his mind.

'_No, NO! YOU'LL LEAVE!'_

'_YOU CAN"T LEAVE ME!'_

They were words of fear, of desperation. To Naruto, they held the familiar tones of a loneliness so complete that the bearer would try and escape it through any means possible, even through force, as Gaara demonstrated today.

When Naruto had seen the children running, all he had wanted to do was reach out and grab them, to keep them there with him so he would not be alone again.

Gaara had just had the means to do so, while he did not.

And if Gaara really was as alone as _he_ was, then Naruto couldn't possibly be mad at him for his injuries. Not that they had bothered him that much in the first place.

They'd be healed within a day or so, after all.

But he was almost positive that Gaara had not actually _meant_ to hurt him, and that was what mattered. As a matter of daily survival, Naruto had become rather good at getting a read on people's intentions and moods, as it usually helped him avoid those out to harm him, and approach those out to help him. And because only a relatively few people he encountered fell into that last category, Naruto could tell right away that Gaara was one of them. He was really a kind person, at heart.

The redhead just…got a little carried away sometimes, is all.

But that still didn't answer the question: why did people hate him and Gaara? Naruto tried to be a nice person, and Gaara had helped him out without even being asked, which happened so rarely to the blonde that it automatically made the boy a saint in Naruto's book.

Why would you hate a nice person? He couldn't think of a single reason.

'_Are you sure they'll let me play?' _Again, the boy's words ran through his mind. At the time, Naruto had chalked up Gaara's hesitance to his shyness, but now that he knew what he knew…

Gaara had probably known they'd reject him, but he'd followed Naruto anyway. In fact, Gaara was probably in trouble now, for hurting him. He cringed in guilt.

He had forced Gaara to play, just because he wanted to have his skills with sand on his team, and now he had been taken away by some mystery ninja to who-knows-where. The last thing that kid needed was more trouble! Naruto resolved that, when—and if—he ever saw Gaara again, he'd make it up to him. Somehow…

But, until then, he'd keep trying to figure out the collective puzzle of their lives.

Staring up at the beautiful, pale moon, Naruto lost himself in thought.

~o0o~

Gaara often felt like crying—or screaming, punching, ripping his hair out, ripping _other _people's hair out and worse—but he didn't. He didn't do that. There were so few things in his life that he got to control, so he never let his emotions control him, if he could help it.

Instead, he had always kept his ever-growing rage at the world bottled up, dangerously unaware of the fact that with enough internal pressure, _any _container will fail.

Today, though, he had gotten a small taste of that lesson, and it terrified him.

It was even worse now, as he stood in the middle of the empty, dark-lit field. Tears leaked from the corner of his eyes, and he was helpless to stop them.

He felt like he was breaking, like all of the hate and confusion and misery were pressing out from within him, like they would seep through the steadily-enlarging cracks of his fractured mind until he shattered apart.

There is only so much willpower a six year old can muster to, literally, hold himself together.

And Gaara was running out.

This knowledge, however, was largely contained in the boy's subconscious, so while he was perfectly aware of feeling miserable, the surface of his thinking was completely focused on resolving the issue of his most recent pain:

He had to find Naruto and help him.

Guilt was an entirely new experience for Gaara, though unfortunately, like most other emotions he was familiar with, it was an unpleasant one. He had never felt bad about the state of another—jealous, maybe, but not guilty. Even if it was just to make himself feel better, Gaara wanted to make amends.

But even more so than remorse, his fear was what drove him to seek the blonde boy out. He was so afraid that Naruto would hate him now, just like everyone else…especially since he had a legitimate reason to, Gaara thought, wincing. Earlier today, during the ball game debacle, he had been so afraid that Naruto, the _only _child who had ever been friendly to him, would run away… then to see him backing away like that… he hadn't even _ordered _his sand to grab him! It just kind of… _happened_. And before he even knew what was going on, there was Naruto, bleeding, _bleeding_, and according to Yashamaru that was a very painful thing to do. But Yashamaru had ushered him away, and he couldn't see Naruto anymore, but he wanted to help, he had wanted to help! And there was just _so much blood_, which had to mean that it was that much more painful…

And _he _had caused it. Gaara had done that to the kind boy. He had caused him pain.

And now Gaara was left to beat himself up over the agonizing possibility that he might have just screwed up his one chance at truly defeating loneliness—all by trying to escape it.

But he would never know for sure until he found him.

Unfortunately, Gaara had hit a snag in his search for the boy—the immediate reason for the frustrated tears he was now dripping onto the sandy field.

He had no idea where the blonde was.

Oh, he had tried to find Naruto's whereabouts by asking people. At the hospital, at the orphanage. The responses were all the same, and equally predictable. A shout of anger. A curse thrown his way. Refusal to help in general. A door slammed in his face.

In fact, the only useful information he managed to turn up was when someone at the hospital finally told Gaara 'He's not here!' and ordered him to leave.

It was only when he was told the same thing at the orphanage did he realize that he knew of nowhere else he could be, and began to worry.

Which was why he was here now, and had been for a long time, searching, as if the cooling, silent sand at his feet—which was usually so quick to aid him—would produce an answer to his dilemma.

And though it took him awhile to notice, miraculously, it did.

It was faint at first, just at the very edge of his awareness, but as Gaara happened to move west it grew stronger and he noticed.

It was a smell—metallic and sharp, and not entirely unpleasant. He followed his nose to the source and stopped, staring at the ground beneath his feet.

Blood. _Naruto's _blood. A big, grainy, wet puddle of it. In the light of the moon, it glistened, black and viscous, trailing away north towards the cliff face. He followed it.

There was another splotch of blackish blood at the edge of the field. Then another. Then another. And _another…_

And though they kept decreasing in size, even as they increased in distance apart, he could always see and smell where the next patch of bloody dirt was, and the next, and the next…

At some point he realized, startled, that he was headed up the trail on the side of the cliff face. His anticipation and urgency deepened.

There was only one place to go once you went up the side of the cliff, and no other way down. And there was only one trail of blood.

Heartbeat quickening, Gaara clutched his bag of medicine tighter, and started running up the hill.

~o0o~

To be an Uchiha in the Village Hidden in the Leaves was to be in a constant state of resentment, discontentment, and all-and-all feeling as though you never got what you deserved.

And becausethey were _Uchiha_, what they deserved was greatness and respect.

According to an Uchiha, anyway.

But regardless, the Uchiha had never really been the happiest of people, especially the ninja of the group—which, since they were the only ones that counted in the clan, saying something about the Uchiha warriors was essentially equal to saying something of the clan itself. But at any rate, other than when they were out slaying enemies in battle they were rarely content. Which, even then, their version of a good mood was feeling indestructible and superior to the defeated opponent beneath their feet. In fact, they may even smirk or chuckle in such a situation. Or even at times off the battlefield, so long as they felt superior to those around them in whatever it was they were doing.

So whenever they felt as if they were made to be seen as somehow _inferior_—for they never really _were_, but public image was easy to manipulate—they were not happy campers. No, not happy at all.

So when word got to Uchiha Fugaku—who was the Head of the Clan, and therefore _The _Uchiha—that the Sandaime had let the Kyuubi, a major power piece of _his_—Fugaku's—village, and the rightful property of the Clan—Shodaime be damned—escape, well…

Simply saying the man was furious would be like saying the Uchihas were only a _little _arrogant. Or that they only _kind of _wanted to murder the Third Hokage in his sleep and overtake the village.

Which, coincidentally, was the main subject of the secret meeting the red-faced Clan Head was now conducting.

"As I'm sure many of you know by now," Fugaku began with a snarl as the last Uchihas to arrive settled in onto their mats on the floor, a hush coming over them, "A few days ago, my son, Itachi," he gestured, and even if anyone in the room had had their sharingan activated, they would not have caught him tense, "led an investigation into the whereabouts of Uzumaki Naruto, the Kyuubi's vessel.

"And do you know what he found?" Murmurs of speculation started throughout the room, but Fugaku continued before they could make any guesses. "Nothing. He found _nothing_, because he isn't here! That fool Hiruzen has let our jinchuuriki slip out of the village!" But what he _didn't _say was that it hadn't been Itachi that told him—it had been a member of one of the hunter-nin squads. The slight look of confusion and worry on Fugaku's face went unnoticed by most, though, as they had all begun shouting upon hearing the news.

"This is unacceptable!"

"How can this be?"

"Something must be done immediately!"

"I _knew _we should have had the Kyuubi transferred into a proper Uchiha vessel! I've said this for years!"

"That old monkey has gone too far this time! He's gotten too senile and fat to even keep track of one child!"

"They say a weak head governs a weak body… well _I_ say it's time we cut off that head!"

"Yes! For too long have we been pushed to the sidelines… it's high time that _we,_ the mighty Uchiha, take our proper place at the head of the village!"

"We are the strongest clan in the strongest village… under us, the village and clan will prosper!"

"We must take action and right the wrongs done to our clan! Starting with placing a proper Uchiha ruler under the hat and repossessing the Kyuubi!"

"Justice must be done!"

"Debts must be repaid!"

"Blood must be spilt!"

"Revenge must be taken!"

The entire room of Uchihas were practically frothing at the mouth, working themselves up into a righteous frenzy.

All except one.

But no one noticed the silent youth watching the events of the meeting unfold with expertly hidden horror, and soon all eyes were on the clan leader anyway, after he had called for silence.

"My clansmen, believe me when I say that I, out of everyone, feel the weight of the wrongs our people have suffered. Not a meeting of the Konoha council goes by that we aren't slighted, not one opportunity for the Third's regime to push us farther into obscurity goes untaken, and every single day that passes brings us closer to the time when the village will attempt to crush us completely!"

Another round of incoherent shouting erupted, but with a stern façade and a stiff wave of his hand, Fugaku brought them back to order.

"That day is coming, whether we like it or not. But we are Uchiha! We will not stand by and be spat upon! _We _will make the first strike! _We _will deliver the deathblow to the heart of the village! And _we_, the great Uchiha clan, will bring the village of Konoha up from the ashes of her refuse as a glorious phoenix! Konoha will burn with our fire and be reborn of it!" Cheers and shouting met the clan head's passionate speech, and he waited until they died down on their own before he spoke again.

"This has always been the plan, but I had deemed it necessary to wait until the time was right. Until the time when our positioning was more to our favor." He shot a quick glance over to his newly promoted ANBU captain son, who made no outward sign he caught the reference. "But now this. This, this, this _insolence,_" he slammed his fist onto the wood of the floor, "of the Third's, to allow _our _weapon to leave the village… It was bad enough when the First Hokage, the fool, who had possession of _all _of the bijou, went and distributed _eight _of them among the lesser nations like party favors! That power should have been ours! And where do the Senju stand now? Gone! All save the slug queen, who as we speak is likely gambling away her family's fortune." There were a few scoffs and sneers at the mention of the fallen status of their only ever true rival in power, but the mood was too serious for the humor to last long.

"But we have flourished where they have failed. Though it has not been an easy road—every step of the way those who followed the philosophy of the First have tried to weaken us, jealous and afraid of our power. They already believe that we are responsible for the attack of the Kyuubi six years ago."

Just because the sharingan was one of the few things that could control a bijou and the fact that a suspiciously low amount of Uchiha lives were lost in the attack didn't mean they did it—few Uchiha died simply because they were all just that awesome.

Fugaku continued. "Which is why I have reason to believe that the release of the Kyuubi from this village was deliberate—because they mistrust is with its power, and decided to cut off their own foot in a desperate attempt to keep it from its' rightful place under our control! Well, that was going too far! We have always known that this village would perish under its' current rule, but not a one of us suspected just how bad it had gotten. Therefore, we must act now, before it grows too late. Our plans are ready enough—we only have to set them into motion."

He leveled his gaze out over the sea of faces, watching with his own doujutsu as the black, furious eyes staring back at him bled into red. He felt a slight chill, wondering how many of these faces would be gone before he saw his clans' rightful rise to power.

Speaking carefully, he uttered the decision that would seal their doom.

"Within four days, Hiruzen Sarutobi will be dead and the village will be ours."

~o0o~

**A/N **– Just for clarification, yes, the Uchiha are starting their coup one year early. Didn't think Naruto's leaving would have an impact on Konoha? Think again!

As always, comments and questions and ESPECIALLY reviews (seriously, review right now. Just one word, even.) are always welcome!

Ciao!

(Shodaime – first Sandaime – third Doujutsu – bloodline eye technique)


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